HPV vaccine, Merck and Rick Perry's money

Vatic Note:  Wow,  CNN covering a scandel involving one of the Rothschild/Bilderberg favorites?  How did that happen?  LOL  On the other hand, its not over yet, so who knows.  I suspect its because the Gardasil scandel had already ruined his chances for the nomination and you can bet, both right and left  grassroots are going to be down there during the count and raising holy hell if anything is even slightly out of wack during the vote count, so its not going to be so easy this time around as it was last time when Ron Paul was the real nominee and corruption at the party leadership level occurred during the various state conventions.   That was when I knew that McCain was the designated loser and Obama the designated winner.   This is up because I am dying of curiosity to know why the BANKER OWNED PRESS is exposing our good friend Perry.     Should be an interesting election cycle for sure.   Wonder if there is fighting at the top???  That would nice.  (Since we put this up,  Buford has come out confirming a big fight at the top of the pond scum heap).

HPV vaccine, Merck and Rick Perry's money
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/15/opinion/krumholz-beckel-perry-pharmaceutical/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

By Sheila Krumholz and Michael Beckel, Special to CNN  (VN:  CNN, can you believe it?)

updated 7:51 AM EST, Thu September 15, 2011

Editor's note: Sheila Krumholz is the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group that tracks money, politics and influence in Washington. Michael Beckel is a spokesman on the center's communications staff.

(CNN) -- On Monday night at the CNN/Tea Party Republican Debate in Tampa, Florida, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas suggested that he couldn't be bought for a campaign contribution of $5,000. That raises the question: Is there a price at which Perry's loyalty is for sale?

During the debate, House Tea Party Caucus founder and fellow presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, alleged that campaign cash and connections to a major drug company played a pivotal role in Perry's executive order in February 2007 that mandated teenaged girls in Texas be inoculated against HPV, a virus that can cause cervical cancer. (The order was overturned by the legislature two months later and did not go into effect.)

"The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them," Perry responded. "I raise about $30 million. And if you're saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended."
But Merck's ties to Perry run much deeper than one $5,000 check.

Bachmann rips Perry on HPV order

The science behind HPV vaccine

Perry's HPV vaccine effort under fire

Keeping them honest: Bachmann's remarks

Merck has given $28,500 to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns since January 2001, according to a new report by Texans for Public Justice, a political watchdog group, which uses data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
And since January 2006, Merck has given an additional $377,500 to the Republican Governors Association, which, in turn, was one of the largest backers of Perry's own campaigns. Notably, Perry also served as the chairman of the governors association from 2007 until last month, when Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell succeeded him, so that Perry could pursue his presidential run.

Did Bachmann's drug lobbyist claims ring true?

Perhaps more importantly, Perry's friend, former chief of staff Mike Toomey, spun through the revolving door to become a lobbyist for Merck in Texas, a position he held at the time of the HPV-related executive order.

Merck was the first company to offer an FDA-approved HPV vaccine, which it offers under the brand name Gardasil.

In 2009, the FDA also approved the drug Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, which, for its part, has given about the same amount of money as Merck to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns since 2001 and nearly four times as much as Merck to the Republican Governors Association since 2006.

In fact, three other pharmaceutical companies have given more money to Perry than Merck and substantially more money to the Republican Governors Association than Merck.

The absence of attention-grabbing headlines does not signify that these companies expect nothing in exchange for their investments. To the contrary, it is their fiduciary obligation to return a profit to their shareholders. Bankrolling politicians -- Republican and Democrat -- is just another tool to help them meet their goals and, in so doing, bolster their profits. If anything, money spent on political donations and lobbying holds more sway when it is unexamined.

Perry's ties to Merck have made it into the sunlight, and people are now considering his actions in light of their past ties.

Is this an example of "crony capitalism?" That's not for the Center for Responsive Politics to decide. It's the public's job to decide if the money outweighed the merits in this policy decision, but it needs to have all of the facts in hand to do so.

Furthermore, Perry's actions benefiting donors from the pharmaceutical industry don't appear to stop with Merck.

For instance, drug-maker Novartis Pharmaceuticals has also contributed handsomely to the Republican Governors Association and it has also benefited from Perry's support.

Novartis has donated $700,000 to the RGA since January 2006, although it has only directly donated $5,000 to Perry's own campaign. In 2009, Perry signed a bill into law mandating meningitis vaccines for all college students, a requirement he expanded again earlier this year. Novartis was not the only pharmaceutical company to benefit from the new requirement, but its Manveo vaccine, introduced less than a year later, fit the bill.

As for Toomey, his involvement with Perry doesn't end with the HPV vaccine.
Earlier this summer, lobbyist Toomey co-founded a super PAC known as Make Us Great Again to aid Perry's presidential run. According to NBC News, Toomey's super PAC plans to spend a staggering $55 million to help his man win the GOP nomination.

If Make Us Great Again does spend more tens of millions to help Perry secure the Republican presidential nomination, what might Toomey and his clients be owed in return? What might the donors to Make Us Great Again be expecting a President Perry to deliver?

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sheila Krumholz and Michael Beckel.

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